David Suzuki: The Challenge of the 21st Century: Setting the Bottomline
Invermere Community Hall
Friday June 1
Wine & Cheese 6:30 PM, Presentation 7:30 PM
Tickets $15, here and at The Book Bar and Circle Health
Wildsight is delighted to bring Dr. David Suzuki to Invermere on the first day of June, 2012.
Very few people speak with his potency, insight and clarity. Fewer still have an extensive background in science, broadcasting and activism.
Suzuki, known to the world as Canada’s voice for the environment, recently stepped down as head of the David Suzuki Foundation.
“I want to speak freely without fear that my words will be deemed too political, and harm the organization of which I am so proud,” Suzuki said.
About David Suzuki’s presentation
Noting that humanity has undergone massive shifts, Suzuki says the global economy has transformed our species into a geological force.
“We are altering the biological, chemical and physical properties of the planet,” he says. In this, the Age of Man, "We are undermining the very life support systems of the planet: Air, water, soil, photosynthesis and biodiversity."
Suzuki will outline the crux of the problem we face as a newly urbanized species, and how big-city living has changed our worldview and our priorities.
“For most of human existence, we understood we were a part of and utterly dependent on nature, but in a hundred years, we have been transformed from an agricultural species to a big city dweller,” he says.
“In a big city, it’s easy to think as long as we have a few parks to camp and play in, we don’t need nature.
“In a city, our highest priority becomes our jobs, because we need jobs to make money to buy the things we think we need. So the economy becomes our highest priority and we forget that the very word economy comes from the same Greek word, oikos, as ecology.”
Suzuki will explore how the defects in our economic paradigm ensure the destruction of the biosphere. He will also offer information as to how we can address these defects.
David Suzuki Biography
Dr. David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author, and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. He is Companion to the Order of Canada and a recipient of UNESCO’s Kalinga Prize for science, the United Nations Environment Program medal, the 2009 Right Livelihood Award, and Global 500. Dr. Suzuki is Professor Emeritus at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and holds 27 honorary degrees from universities around the world. He is familiar to television audiences as host of the multi-award winning long-running CBC science and natural history television series The Nature of Things, and to radio audiences as the original host of CBC Radio’s Quirks and Quarks, as well as the acclaimed series It’s a Matter of Survival and From Naked Ape to Superspecies. In 1990 he co-founded The David Suzuki Foundation to work with “government, business and individuals to conserve our environment by providing science-based education, advocacy and policy work for social change that today’s situation demands”. His written work includes more than 54 books, 19 of them for children. Dr. Suzuki lives with his wife, Dr. Tara Cullis, and family in Vancouver, B.C.